She began to speak in loud, staccato bursts that would have been hard to decipher even if they had known the language. She shrieked, moving now in jerky steps, gesturing wildly down at them, then at the burning wreck, and then at them again. She pulled manically at her hair as she howled up at the sky, her voice never faltering as she screamed her nonsensical monologue into the darkness.
It seemed to go on for hours, and Justin and Marcus shared more than one sidelong look as she ranted and raved, now seemingly oblivious to them. Whenever it appeared like she was winding down, her staggering movements would bring her once again to the rim of the crater, where she would pause, staring down into the twisted mess at the bottom, and then she would be off again, roaring down at them as if this whole tragedy was all their fault.
Eventually, the woman ran out of energy. She stopped, seemingly in mid-rant, and her legs folded beneath her. She lowered herself gracefully to the pavement, her elbows coming to rest on her knees, her head in her hands, and she began to sob quietly.
Marcus looked over at Justin who could only shrug, raising his eyebrows in confusion. Pushing himself up from the highway, he dusted himself off and moved to the crumpled woman.
“Miss, do you speak English at all? Is there something that we can do to help?” He looked again at Justin, but there was no help there. She had to be military of some sort. Judging by the nature of her plane, she had to be high up on someone’s chain of command. But she seemed to have completely lost her senses. Something about the way she was acting had set a dark and ominous thought stirring in the back of his mind, half-formed, giving only a vague sense of danger and unease. At the moment, however, they were all stranded on this all-but abandoned stretch of old highway, with a dead body not ten feet away, and the only escape available this odd helicopter-like thing, flown by a woman who had clearly checked out.
“Miss, if there’s anything we can do, please tell us. I’m sure there are people who want to know where you are. Is there someone we should call?” He repeated the request, figuring that it might break through whatever depression had claimed her.
At last the woman raised her head. She looked up, her eyes red from crying, but cold as ice as she regarded him. She looked over to where Justin still sat on the tar, and he tried to give her a friendly smile. She did not return the expression.
The woman sat unmoving for several minutes, and although at first Marcus found this far more preferable to the anguished sobbing that had preceded it, but after a minute or two, the eerie stillness started to get to him. He was about to ask again if they could help when she unfolded gracefully to her feet. She looked down at Justin, and then reached out one hand. He hesitated a moment and then accepted the offered help.
She lifted Justin up, and then stepped back to look at both men. They stood side by side, waiting for what might come next. Her eyes had taken on a calculating look and she began to pace back and forth, looking at each of them in turn. She stopped, her expression vague, and tilted her head with a strange, sharp gesture. Her eyes seemed to fall out of focus, flicking rapidly back and forth as if chasing sparks that only she could see. Then with another tilt, she was back, looking at Marcus with eyes that had narrowed even further.
She spoke, her voice reasonable and calm, her words holding no more meaning than they had before.
Marcus shrugged, shaking his head. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t even recognize the language she was speaking, never mind understand any of what she was saying.
The woman cut off abruptly, shaking her head in undisguised exasperation. Her head fell again, her arms on her hips. When she looked up, her eyes were cold.
“Buteefu?” She said the word slowly, as if to a child, nodding her head as if urging him to follow along.
Marcus shrugged again. “I don’t know what that means.” Obviously, she was trying to communicate, but the sounds had been no closer to English than anything else the strange woman had said.
She sighed as her eyes closed, then opened again. Again, she repeated, “Buteefu?” This time she gestured around her neck, across her chest, with both hands as if gripping something.
Marcus looked over to Justin, but his friend looked just as lost. They both shrugged.
The woman spat something foul-sounding. Again her hands were on her hips. She looked up into the dark sky, her eyes closing, and her eyelids fluttered rapidly once again. When her head came down her eyes were open, staring straight at Marcus, and she said, clear as day, “Necklace.”
Both men smiled, nodding, and Marcus said, “Yes! Necklace! … Wait, what necklace?”
The dark face, still reflecting purple highlights from the burning wreck, did not move. The violet eyes did not flicker. She stared at him, then said, slowly as if to a particularly slow child, “Beautiful necklace.”
Again the men shared a glance, and then looked blankly at the strange woman.
She closed her eyes again, then moved to the edge of the crater, pointed at the ruined car, then at their car, then flung her arms wide, looking from side to side as if searching for something, then again said, in her heavily accented speech, “beautiful necklace?”
The silence stretched on as both men stared at her, neither wanting to admit ignorance again. When Justin gave a slight gasp, Marcus jumped. “What?”
Marcus watched as his friend’s eyes slid over to the Camry, then back to him. “Beautiful necklace?”
Marcus made a face. That had not been as helpful a comment as he had been hoping for. “Yeah, I got that part. What the hell does she mean?”
Justin gave a slight shrug, and then tilted his head toward the car. “Do we have a beautiful necklace?”
The jewels in his pocket suddenly doubled in weight as this little mystery, at least, became clear. “Oh, damn! The necklace!”
Marcus pulled the net of delicate chain and gemstones from his pocket and held it up with an innocent smile. “This?”
The woman’s face transformed as the jewelry was held before her, but not in any way they might have anticipated. First, a deep look of despair came over her, and then anger boiled up to wipe that away, and finally, if they had to guess, a sneer of disgust. She spat again, this time into the crater, and put a hand out for the necklace.
A flash of images went through Marcus’s mind as he looked at her over the dangling necklace. He had only possessed it for a short time, and yet he was loath to let it go. Again, the glittering within the primary jewel distracted him. He could almost feel an electrical current running down his arm, sending fluttering pulses through his heart.
Without being aware, he withdrew his hand, gathering the necklace to his chest.
The woman’s eyes tightened again as she watched his reaction. Without another word she strode toward him, looking more closely at the necklace, then into his eyes as if inspecting him for some physical flaw. She spat another bitter comment under her breath in that strange, nonsensical language, shaking her head.
She turned around to look at Justin, then back to Marcus, and then gestured to the murmuring craft idling nearby. After closing her eyes for just a moment, she snapped, “You come.”
The words were peremptory. It was not an invitation or a question.
Justin smiled widely, shook his head once as if to clear it, and then moved quickly to the old Camry, popping the trunk and rummaging around inside. Then he moved around the car to the passenger side, forced the back door open and reached in for something, rising with a large gym bag in hand. Marcus recognized what his friend had always called his ‘bug-out bag.’
“I’m ready.” He said it with a smile that set his bright teeth flashing in the reflecting firelight. His eyes were shining.
Marcus stared at his friend, amazed. “You’re ready?”
Justin’s smile widened. “Hell yeah, I’m ready! Are you crazy? Have you been paying attention to what’s going on here? This is some weird-ass shit! You’re going to say no? Miss out on all this stuff?” He gestured with one arm to t
he vehicle, then to the exotic woman who waited for them.
Marcus shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. A man just died, for Christ’s sake! She killed him!” He jerked a thumb at the vehicle. “She killed him with that thing! And neither of us even knows what the hell that thing is!”
Justin’s settled back on his heels, gesturing broadly with his free arm. “Exactly.”
Marcus could feel all the pent up anger and confusion rising once more in his throat. “Exactly? Exactly? What about your work? What about your contracts? What about Sarah? What about your car? What about everything?”
Justin shrugged. “The work’ll be there when we come back; if I come back. That’s what being your own boss is all about. Sarah’ll be fine without me, that’s the kind of girl I generally end up with.” He looked back at the smoking Camry. “My car is old, and ugly, and now dead, so no big loss there. And my closest relative is an uncle who doesn’t know I exist!”
Marcus had worked himself up into a froth. “You can’t be serious! You have no idea who she is, or where she’s going! You can’t—”
“You too.” While the men had been speaking, the woman had moved around to address them both from in front of her flying machine. She was pointing at Marcus, ignoring Justin.
Marcus stared at her, his mouth hanging open, and then shook his head violently. “No! I mean, no way! There is no way I’m going with you! Do you have any idea—”
Something bulged on the woman’s shoulder. She was wearing a high, tight jacket, like a bolero made out of a soft, reflective surface. The shoulders of the garment were shiny and rigid. And something like a small arm had just lifted away from the right shoulder. It had a ball on the end that pivoted around like an eye looking for something, and then it settled upon him.
“You too.” She repeated, as if she had now made her case.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, or where you’ve gotten all of these nifty movie props, but—”
A red light flared within the orb on her shoulder, and a line struck out, settling upon his forehead.
“You too.” This time the words were slow and deliberate.
Marcus was at a loss. Something in his head told him he should feel threatened, but the anger and the fear and the confusion were still there, doing their best to run interference on immediate observation. He shook his head, his brows drawing together toward the floating dot.
The woman shifted her gaze from Marcus’s head to the Camry. Without warning, a beam of bright, solid light lanced out from the thing on her shoulder and there was a loud crumpling sound, like a car accident, behind him. He jumped, spinning around, gripping the necklace even tighter, and watched as the Camry seemed to collapse in upon itself, a massive hole punched through the side, taking the back half of the driver’s door and the front half of the back door with it.
“Damn!” Justin stared open mouthed at what was left of his car.
“That does not clarify the issue!” Marcus felt as if he was going to drown in the emotions crashing through him. “Blowing up the car does nothing to help!”
“Uh, Marc,” Justin hiked the strap of his bag higher up on his shoulder. “Couple things: one, it’s not like you’ve got another option for transportation handy just now; and two, she’s pointing it at your head again. Can we just head out, figure everything else out later?”
Marcus looked back at the woman, the glimmering line connecting them again. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He had thought he was suffering from shock before, but he now realized, as the cold rose up from his feet and the pressure built behind his eyes, that that had been nothing. As if in a dream, he nodded, forcing his mouth closed. He nodded again, not trusting himself to speak.
Justin nodded as well, turned to the frightening figure with a smile, and started walking toward her. “What we got, sweets?”
She stared at him with those inhuman violet eyes, a snarl building on her lips. With a sudden, jerking move, she turned back to the crater and barked some foul-sounding words as the weapon on her shoulder flashed, sending bolt after bolt into the smoldering wreckage of the Prius. When she was done, there was nothing but twisted metal and glittering droplets of molten glass behind. With a nod, her eyes still glowing, she turned on one heel and marched toward the ship.
Marcus followed, noticing with some half-asleep part of his brain when the red light winked out, the bulge on her shoulder settling back into its hard shell without leaving a sign or blemish behind.
The vehicle looked more menacing as they approached. Hanging above them, the head-like protrusion was about ten feet wide, while the rest of the fuselage was closer to fifteen or twenty. The ramp was smooth, but had no give when they stepped onto it, following the woman up into the ship. They moved through a large, open space with various pieces of equipment fixed to walls and floor. They climbed a steep ship’s ladder up into another compartment that reminded Marcus of something out of the Arabian Nights. Shimmering cloth hung from the walls, hiding the full dimensions of the chamber, and pillows and cushions were scattered about in a haphazard manner. It was a swirl of colors and different fabrics, more like a gypsy’s wagon than the inside of some strange war plane.
The woman pushed through a heavy curtain of brocade, gesturing for them to follow, and they entered a control area with a single pilot’s chair in the center. They found themselves looking down through the gleaming upper surface of what they now realized was the cockpit at the smoking wreckage of two cars littering the roadway.
Justin put down his duffle bag and moved to the window. They could see just as clearly as if they were looking directly down at the scene below. But when he reached out, his hand passed into a hazy field of light and the image distorted around him. He looked back at Marcus, his grin even wider.
“Man, you’ve got to check this out.” Marcus moved up beside his friend and looked out. He saw no glare, no sign of any kind that there was anything between him and the open night air. But when he put his own hand out, he felt a slight tingling, like static electricity, and that distorting effect.
The woman made a hissing noise and gestured for them to back up. By the softly glowing light, Marcus could see that her skin really was a deep purple, adding to the surrealism of the moment. She slid easily into the seat, which was draped with some shaggy fur-bearing hide, and a soft, glowing sphere appeared to hover before her. Behind her and to either side two similar chairs rose out of the floor as if they were rising out of still water, the same neutral color as the deck plating.
Justin sank into the closest chair and yelped as it writhed beneath him. Marcus looked at the remaining chair with distrust. He pushed at it and it gave slightly, like cold clay.
The strange woman barked something and Marcus dropped into his chair. Beneath him he could feel the material shifting and sorting itself out, sinking in some places and rising in others, until he was completely and comfortably supported, his legs stretched out before him, his arms on smooth, perfectly positioned rests.
None of this made him feel any better.
The woman settled back slightly in her chair and leaned forward. She reached out and put her hands into the sphere of light, minute shifts of her fingers stirring dancing motes of dust that glittered, suspended, within the glow. The view outside moved, sliding down and sideways; the burning wrecks slipping out of view.
There was very little sense of motion as they drifted out over the ravine, the old bridge dropping away on their right. Behind them they heard a distant, constant rumbling, but that was the only sign there was an engine of some kind at work.
The view ahead of them shifted again as the nose lifted higher. The horizon dropped away and the clouds swept into view. Marcus’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch as he realized they were pointing straight up, although he felt no change in the pressure pushing him gently into his seat. The clouds ahead of them surged suddenly, jumping at them in a terribly disorienting fashion. The rumble behind them neve
r shifted, and there was no sense of acceleration within the vehicle itself.
Realization dawned on Marcus just as they pierced the clouds, a panorama of stars opening up before them.
“Wait … Where are we going?” His voice was shaking, and he didn’t care.
“Yeah!” Beside him, this latest surprise just seemed to make Justin even more excited.
“Where are we going!?” Marcus repeated, trying to sit up. There was no belt or other restraint, but something about the way the seat was embracing him kept him from standing, or even moving his legs.
“I said wait! Where are you taking us?” Even as he struggled, he did not miss the sneering smile the woman shot over her shoulder. Marcus saw Justin fiddling with something out of the corner of his eye and turned to stare in wonder as his friend furiously tapped out instructions on his phone.
“What are you doing?” He snapped. He was just realizing that he hadn’t thought to contact his brother, or Clarissa, or anyone.
Justin’s smile was wider than it had ever been. “I’m changing my status.” His thumbs flew across the screen.
Marcus leaned over to look at his friend’s phone, and then reeled back in disgust. “Abducted by aliens?”
Justin nodded with glee, but the strange woman glanced back in annoyance, her brows drawing down as she saw the phone. Her eyes closed for a brief moment, and then she was glaring again. She jerked her chin at the device. “Visage Tome?”
Justin thought about it for a second, then laughed and nodded. “Yeah, sure!”
She turned back, shaking her head, and her shoulders tensed for a moment.
Justin’s laughter stopped suddenly and he gasped.
Legacy of Shadow Page 4
